had one recurring nightmare——Dead locusts under my feet——

A casket budding empty——Hanging there——Turning in oak root——

What was the nature of the threat he made to you

Planet with no name——Tell me——

At what point could I have been trusted——

Not to let him into the house——Not to repeat his words

back to him——One by one in a pattern——

When I have lived through this——I wanted to ask——

When I am full-alive untied from him——

Will I be required——To haul out into the sun & let burn dry

the blood I lost——On each of these estrangements——Will I?

There I am——Pictured with my face obscured

Bright landscape——With my arms bleeding out of the picture——

ELEGY FOR R

I’m inventing a way

to speak to you.

To explain

the way it felt—

like 50 acres

burning.

Spruce, pine,

fir. Everything

ashes.

Like we dug ditches

all night

to save them.

If I don’t believe

there is a collective

cloud space

I believe

there is something

in trees

& I learned grief

spares nothing—

maple, cedar, hemlock

ditchline black

with treefire

treecinder treefall—

our mouths

filled with dirt,

the woods

loud

with what chaos

survived it.

It’s the first year

you’ve been dead longer

than you were ever

alive. What

would you say

about that?

I was 10—

I looked up suicide

in the dictionary—

I didn’t know

anything. Without

you, we were

heavy, divided.

We knelt down

in the dirt

where the roots

were suspended

in water.

[REMARKABLE THE LITTER OF BIRDS]

Remarkable the litter of birds cleared from the city every morning

The ones who flew toward the sky in the reflection of the glass

Dead or stunned I often think given the chance I wouldn’t live my life over

I have just this one heart okay I was burned I was gaslit nearly to ash on the first try

From the start I was told I was a powerful speaker I was told when & how I should speak

It’s true I made a feast of my own misery I invited everyone the whole gang

We ate only flowers it was my misery after all I was 29

I’d had a narrow escape from becoming Julian of Norwich

Finally I felt safe enough to ask Katie Is it antifeminist to starve myself over a boy?

Her response was kind What if we revise the focus of that question

Soon we were eating peonies & lilacs with bees inside

All these marriages had come out to watch me deliver my speech

I filled my mouth with bees I tried to speak through the bees

Everyone if we’re going to talk about love please we have to talk about violence

I was stung my tongue swelled I was spitting crushed bees

A special crew came to sweep them up before anyone could see

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH HAWK & ARMADA

Oh hawk after hawk over Indiana—

are you watching me